Damn
by mrscribble
Summary: Four of our Titans place a bet against Neil: who's going to be making the first move, Archie or Atlanta? Archie has difficulty expressing his feelings and Atlanta is confused. Of course, we know Neil is the lucky one... AxA, T for title word


**Damn**

The first thing Neil did as he strode confidently through the front door of the brownstone that afternoon was brandish a twenty dollar bill at Theresa, Odie, and Jay with an expression plastered with triumph and smugness.

"Twenty bucks," Jay said blankly, after a silent lull in which Neil clearly expected them to respond in some way. "Is there some significance to your money that we don't know about?"

"Yours truly bet Archie he'd chicken out of telling Atlanta she looked good today," Neil said, smoothing down his hair as he lowered himself onto the sofa. "This, my friends, is twenty crisp new dollars straight from Archie's wallet."

Theresa rolled her eyes and folded her arms in her familiar disbelieving stance. "Only _you_ would bet on the obvious," she said in a long-suffering tone. "That's like betting on the fact Herry's going to be manually cleaning the upstairs bathroom this weekend."

Herry extricated his head from the fridge in the kitchen, where he stood having clearly heard the conversation. "Hey, how'd you know I was going to -"

"There's this tiny patch of mould near the faucets, and you hate mould," Theresa answered offhandedly. "But Neil, can't you bet on something that isn't completely obvious for once?"

Neil tapped his knee thoughtfully. "You know, that's a cool idea," he said, sounding rather like someone who had just discovered that the sky really was blue. The blond looked around, and grinned. "Odie? How much've you got in your wallet?"

Odie raised an eyebrow, taking out his battered wallet and taking a seat next to Neil on the sofa. He briefly ruffled through the contents of his wallet. "Three bucks, a dime and a piece of gum."

Neil turned to Theresa. "And you?"

She flipped her hair over her shoulder. "Eighty bucks."

The blond boy leaned back on the sofa, propping his feet up on the coffee table. "Jay? You want to do some betting?"

Jay reluctantly reached into his pocket, feeling torn between putting up his money and stopping the betting business going on here altogether. "I've got thirty-five bucks, but -"

"I bet all of you that Atlanta's gonna make the first move."

Herry choked as he entered the living room, struggling with the large sandwich bite that was now forcing itsself down his throat. He emerged from his coughing fit with a wide grin. "Neil, that's a dumb bet. Atlanta and Archie aren't going anywhere soon, and even if they were, Archie'd make the first move - I'll bet ten bucks on that."

Odie, grinning, said, "Exactly. You know you're going to lose this bet."

"Atlanta hardly recognizes her own feelings, let alone Archie's," Theresa added.

Neil stretched his arms, folding them across his chest so he looked like a smug peacock. "If I win, you guys give me what you bet me. If you guys win, I'll give each of you -" he paused, counting silently for a moment - "one hundred and twenty eight dollars, ten cents and a piece of gum."

"How can you afford that, though?" Theresa inquired, looking slightly unnerved. "That's a lot of money."

He shrugged nonchalantly. "I have a big photoshoot coming up. Don't worry about it. Worry about having to give your money to me."

Amused, Jay shook his head, and Odie reclined on the sofa with an expression much like the one on Neil's face. "You're _on_, pretty boy."

--

_You're gorgeous. You're beautiful. You're really pretty. You look pretty. You look pretty today. You look nice today._

The phrase, so all-encompassing as a declaration of love, whittled down into a pathetic little observation in his head as the seconds passed and as Archie opened and closed his mouth, doing a remarkable imitation of a gaping goldfish. Atlanta stood just across from him, looking utterly bemused. They had agreed to go for an early-morning boarding session, or at least until he'd decided he'd rather play_ Animal Planet_ instead.

"Yeah?"

Archie's mouth continued to open and close. "I - uh - you... I -"

Atlanta rolled her eyes. _Boys. Total blabbering idiots_. Maybe he'd had too many of those liquor-filled chocolates Neil had gotten as a gift from his agent. "Spit it out, Archie."

The violently violet-haired teenager reached an arm around to scratch nervously at the back of his neck. It wasn't as if what he was about to say was a lie, because she did look very nice today, as she did every day, with her hair gelled up and her large, lined dark eyes gazing at him expectantly. It was just that it was proving very hard to say anything. He stopped gaping to lick his lips nervously.

"You..."

She continued to stare at him, eyebrows slightly raised, and before he could go any further his brain leaped into the statement and interrupted what he was about to say, causing the phrase "yeah, let's just go," to spill out instead.

She rolled her eyes with a mix of frustration and amusement. "That's what I've been saying for the last five minutes, numb nuts," she said teasingly, taking a step before leaping onto her board. "Race you down the hill!"

Damn. He'd chickened out again. Archie shook his head and pushed off on his skateboard. Damn, damn, _damn_.

Odie and Herry's heads popped out from around the doorway where they had been spying on the unsuspecting pair, and they both grimaced simultaneously. "Damn!"

--

Archie stormed into the brownstone that afternoon incredibly frustrated and annoyed, above all, that he had three opportunities that day to compliment Atlanta he'd completely blown. The first, no doubt, was the swift subject change he had somehow managed to sputter out that morning when he had her attention (and there was the following, _incredibly_ embarrassing butt-whipping he'd gotten from her during their skateboarding race). The second would be his downright humiliating moment during training with Ares in which he'd lamely attempted to compliment Atlanta on her outfit (that time he'd gotten the words out but seeing as she was dressed in sweatpants and a grimy old t-shirt, she'd just burst out laughing then promptly beat him up during one-on-one sparring). And the last but not least would be after training when he'd gone on a walk with her around the park, was about to confess his deepest feelings (or at least say that she really did look nice), then tripped and fell with an almighty splash into the pond, where he floundered, spluttering and crying for help in the water that he despised so much. She'd laughed at him all the way back, at least until she met Odie and went off to grab a burger with him, no doubt really just wanting to share the story of his 'swim'.

Theresa met him on his way up to his room, and she wrinkled her nose distastefully, pulling at his drenched blue hoodie. She yanked at his hair with the other hand, pulling out a long, thin string of a soggy water plant. "Charming," she said, raising an eyebrow. "Fall into the pond?"

"No, I jumped in," Archie replied irritably, pushing past her to enter his room and collect what he needed for a shower. He turned and frowned at the sight of her now standing in the doorway. "What do you want?"

"Oh, well, you know," Theresa answered slyly, leaning against the doorframe and smirking at him. "I overheard Atlanta talking about some photo gallery show she wants to go to. Some photographer's show about climate change. Entry's free but no-one else wants to go with her."

Raising a hand to run through his hair, which had now come out of its usually moussed-up 'hawk and was hanging limply around his face, Archie swallowed. "Uh... yeah? So?"

The redhead shrugged. "Well, if nobody ends up asking her, she might have to go by herself." Archie distrusted the knowing gleam in her eye, but the opportunity jumped out at him. It was the perfect setting - something she liked, nothing too fancy, and not like in some dumb movie theater where it was expected, by the sounds of everyone around you, that you should be making out (or at least holding hands).

"Uh, okay," he said, in a valiant attempt to sound casual. "I guess I'll ask her later. So she won't have to go by herself."

As he walked past her out of his room and into the bathroom, Theresa grinned.

--

"Atlanta, I like you, and I want to take you to the - no. Wait. Okay. Atlanta, do you want to go the the photography exhibit? No, that's practically an open-ended question. Um, look, I really like you, and I thought maybe we could go to the - no, that's totally pathetic!"

Archie growled, glaring into the depths of the one mirror he had, a cracked affair on the inside of his wardrobe. He cracked his knuckles, shaking his head, and ventured over to his desk, taking out a small, leatherbound book, one of the many volumes of poetry hidden away in the bottom drawer. This one differed from his others in that most of the other volumes accompanied each other in sets of classical poetry. Unlike this one, which was not a testament to an ancient bloody war, they were thick and well-thumbed, whereas this one he'd only read through a few times.

He supposed that was what his mother should have expected, buying him a book of damn romantic poetry. Then again, maybe she had thought it would come in handy, like it might now.

Archie flipped to a random page, cleared his throat, and proclaimed, "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways: I love thee to the depth and breadth and -- what the hell _is_ this?"

"Oh, good, I thought you were reading that for fun," a familiar voice commented dryly, and he looked up at where Atlanta stood, the smirk that had been on Theresa's face only a couple of hours before now plastered on hers.

Archie inwardly groaned, then suddenly began to panic. If she had heard him before... "How long've you been there?" he asked suspiciously. "And how come you didn't knock?"

She came in, rolling on to his bed and grinning a true Cheshire Cat grin. "I did knock," she replied playfully, "and don't worry, I only caught that last line. You can keep reading your love poem if you want to. Have a sucky English assignment?"

"Yeah, you could say that," he muttered under his breath, quickly putting the book away. He turned back to her. "What's up?" Archie asked.

Atlanta stretched, looking rather like an elegant cat, and let herself fall back on to his bed, belly-up. "Avoiding my homework," she admitted cheekily. "I had a History test yesterday and I'd really rather not start studying for my Biology test on Monday."

The perfect window for his ever-so-tricky question opened up and Archie's eyes widened. "You know, if you don't want to study yet..." he started carefully, fighting the urge to gulp.

"Which I don't..."

"And you wanted to do something to get your mind off the test..."

"Which I do..."

"Then what if you wanted to go with me to - "

Neil suddenly rounded the corner into Archie's room. "_You_! Ugly-haired, bad dye-job _criminal_ of a person - have you no _shame_?"

Archie glared at the slightly wavering, perfectly manicured finger pointing in his direction. Neil looked a cross between frazzled and downright furious, and Archie gave a bit of a growl. Righteously so, as he had just been on the edge of asking out the girl he'd made a mission of attempting to ask out. "What do you _want_, Neil?"

Neil held up a bottle Archie vaguely recognized as the shampoo he'd used only a while earlier. "This is_ my_ shampoo, water-boy," Neil said fiercely. "You used it and now you've messed up my shampoo to conditioner ratio as _well_ as getting your grimy little thumbprints all over the label!"

"_Water-boy_?" Archie could only manage, thoroughly confused.

"Yeah, water-boy," Neil said, leaning in slightly and narrowing his eyes, "'cause if you use my hair products again, I'll drench you with _water, boy_."

The blond turned with a huff and stormed off down the hallway, and Archie gaped after him. "Is he for real?" he asked Atlanta incredulously. She was shaking in a fit of laughter on his bed and swung her legs over the side of his bed frame, stepping lightly out the doorway.

"I don't know, _water-boy_," she teased, and darted away down the hall.

Archie blinked for a moment wondering what had just happened, then sudden realization set in. "Wait - I wanted to ask you to -"

The front door slammed closed, and he groaned, lowering his head on to his hand in despair. The door slamming would only mean she was going out for a spontaneous run, thus ruining another one of his chances to ask her out.

Archie turned on his chair and let his head hit the desk.

Jay, just around the corner and peering cautiously into the room, straightened up and sighed a little. _Damn._

--

That evening, at dinnertime, Archie was glowering down into his food as he stabbed his mashed potatoes viciously with his fork. Now, instead of the fluffy, lightly salted and peppered wonder they had been after Athena had whipped them up, his potatoes vaguely resembled concrete, in that he had pounded down on them so many times they now formed a layer of compressed vegetable across the bottom of his plate.

As Herry took the bowl of potatoes and scooped himself another large serving, Odie raised his eyebrows at Archie. "What's eating you?"

Archie glanced up before assuming his death-glare to the potatoes again. "Nothing."

"If looks could kill, you'd have burned a laser hole through the table by now," Theresa said, setting her fork down and giving him a look of deepest concern.

He looked up and forced a smile. "I'm fine and dandy. Just not very hungry."

Herry looked over sympathetically. "I hear you. I want to keep eating these amazing mashed potatoes -" he took a glance over at Athena, who flashed a smile at this compliment - "but I'm just not that hungry."

"You've eaten three platefuls, Herry," Jay noted.

"_Exactly_," Herry said emphatically.

Jay shook his head and, thankfully, changed the subject. "So, Atlanta, who did you say you finally got to go to that photography show with you?"

Or maybe not so thankfully, Archie thought as his head shot up in disbelief. Atlanta was gazing down at her vegetables, looking - or at least, what Archie interpreted to be - smitten. "Oh, my Chemistry lab partner," she said, looking up with those twinkling dark eyes Archie cursed to Hades because, no doubt, some dweeby environmentalist chemistry student had been caught in them. Damn, damn, _damn_! Why did she have to be so damn amazing? Eventually, he decided, she and her lab partner would go off and go pop off perfect little environmentalist kids and he swore to _God_ he had to kill something. "He heard I wanted to go, so he asked me -"

At this, Archie felt a twisting, clenching sensation in his stomach that either indicated he was going to be sick or he really, really needed a good read of the gory parts in_ The Iliad_.

Standing up, chair scraping back loudly, he flashed a very fake smile. "Excuse me," Archie said, and stalked away from the table and up to his room. The other six teenagers watched him go, puzzled.

Atlanta was the first to recover. "Well, um, like I was saying," she continued, "he asked me to go like as in a date, but I said no, and I'm really only still going with him because nobody else wants to come. He's a total nerd. Kind of like Odie."

"Hey!" Odie spoke up from the end of the table, frowning.

--

Theresa and Atlanta had been talking in Atlanta's room for ages now, and Archie massaged his temples angrily. Every once in a while, they spoke up loud enough so snippets of their conversation drifted into his hearing range through the wall separating their rooms. They'd started off talking bolas versus laser cross-bow and somehow drifted into real girly-talk conversation, and now he couldn't help but overhear the phrases they were spouting about boys. Theresa was chattering on about Jay and he had half a mind to go tell her to shut up. Everyone knew Jay and Theresa were almost something, anyway, she didn't have to broadcast it to the world again.

He shook his head, trying to clear his mind so he could continue reading, at least until he heard a few more words, and he stood up to walk over to his bed, where he pressed his ear against the wall. He swore he'd heard Atlanta talking about a boy - probably about that stupid lab partner of hers.

Theresa was chattering on again, now, but not about Jay. Archie could only hear parts of her sentences, even if he strained to listen. _"Look, Atlanta ... you've got to ... everybody knows ... haven't you known him long enough to ... don't you like him?"_

There was a long, silent pause, and Archie pressed his ear further against the wall. Theresa was talking to Atlanta about this? Was he, the descendant of Achilles, the slowest person in the world or something? If she was talking about him like this, Archie realized with a feeling of impending doom, _everyone_ must know how deep they were into it. Oh God, how long had all this been going on? Was Atlanta seriously in deep with this... _lab partner_ of hers?

Atlanta spoke now, and Archie listened carefully, though still able to only hear disconnected segments of speech. _"I just never thought ... he ... I guess I never realized ... for me to ... like him?"_

Theresa began to jabber on again. _"You really just need ... I can tell you, everyone ... wait and let ... ask you out."_

_"Well I only ... okay."_

Archie sprung away from the wall, as if it had suddenly contracted a deadly disease, and all he could hear was his heart pumping. He couldn't blow his chance. There was no way, no way in stinking _hell_, he was letting Atlanta prance into the arms of some geeky, argyle-vested dweeb when he had been trying so hard to catch up to her. No way was a DJ Panic thing going to happen again.

He leapt off his bed, sprinted out into the hall, and threw open the closed but not locked door of Atlanta's room, storming in. Theresa and Atlanta looked up from their places on her bed, one in surprise and one in anger. "Archie, what are you doing in my room?" Atlanta demanded. "I closed my door for a reason, you -"

She didn't have a chance to finish as he began a tirade of his own. "Why am I in here? _Why am I here_? I'm here so you don't make the biggest damn mistake of your life!"

Theresa gaped, and Atlanta sprung up to stand in front of him. "Archie, what the _hell _-" she started furiously.

Archie was already shouting again, though, and he paid no heed to her words as he began to pace quickly, gesticulating wildly with his arms.

"I'm coming in here so I can tell you that there is no way, no way in past or present or future that you're going to fall in love with _Mister Chemistry Dweeb_ and spring off millions of nature-loving, witty as hell little babies that all look like little carbon copies of you and your freaking _lab partner_ while I'm standing _right here_! There is _no way_ you're going to go anywhere with him where he could somehow make you like his stupid nerdy ways or his clever little stupid love poems which I'm probably better at him than writing _anyway_! Oh, I know you already think I'm a dork but _guess what_! I'm going to embarrass myself even more than the time I threw up all over the place when I tried to go sailing with Jay, or the time Herry held me upside-down over the pier and I threw up there _as well_! You know why? Because _I_ don't want to let _you_ run off with some random guy that probably has nothing, _nothing_ in common at all with you! Sure he might be an _environmentalist_, or he might be _really_ good looking under that ugly, boring _dorkwad_ exterior but I've been trying to tell you that I like you for the last few million months, or it could be years, because I really can't tell how time flies when I'm with you! I'm _tired_ of trying to _tell_ you that you look incredibly amazing even when you've got me in a headlock and you're trying to give me a noogie, or that I think you've got these huge, beautiful eyes that make me want to stand there looking like a _dope_, which I _do_ - do because _I like you_! And I don't want to have to stand by any longer just _waiting_ and _waiting_ for my _stupid_ brain to figure out how to say the words out loud and how to tell you I really wanted to go out with you to the exhibit, but you're probably going to be there with your _stupid dorky_ chemistry _boyfriend _and -"

His pale face suddenly went a lot whiter as he stopped speaking, then he flushed a vivid red that clashed horribly with his hair. Archie managed to stop gaping at what Atlanta had just done, partly out of desperation to get him to shut up, and attend to the matter at hand because she had gone up to him and grabbed his shoulders in a vice-like grip and planted her lips on his and he was kissing her - or, rather, she was kissing _him_ and he eagerly responded.

She broke away first, pink tinging her cheeks, but she ruffled her hair and glanced at Theresa, who was watching with some excitement and a whole lot of disbelief. "I don't like _him_. So let's go," Atlanta finally said, looking back at Archie who looked a lot like he had just been hit by a truck.

"Go where?" he asked vaguely, a gleeful, dopey expression stretching across his face.

"Well, the exhibit's probably closed now, but we could go catch _Killer Monsters from Outer Space 4,_" she said, turning and walking out the doorway. He stood there for a moment - movie theaters were always full of couples making out and holding hands and gross, sappy things like that.

Suddenly the idea wasn't so unappealling.

He grinned as he followed her.

Theresa watched them go out the door and let her head fall into her hands._ Damn!_

--

"I still think this is unfair," Odie pointed out as he took out his coins and stick of gum. "_Technically_, he told her he wanted to take her to the exhibit first -"

"But she _technically_ made the first move," Theresa answered him. "I hate it as much as you do, but it's the facts. Plus I have to pay way more than you do. God, I can't believe I put up _eighty dollars_."

Neil grinned devilishly as he held his hand out. Jay was forlornly handing him his thirty-five bucks, and Herry had attempted to sneak away before being promptly called back by Neil for his ten dollars. "What can I say?" Neil said smoothly, pocketing the wagers he had just won. They all grumbled, glaring at him with utmost dislike. He winked and brushed his hair back handsomely. "You can never win a bet against me."

The same word was on all four of their minds as they glowered at the preening blond: _damn_.


End file.
